Horace Walpole Quotes (33 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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The Castle of Otranto

Horace Walpole

Horace Walpole: 33 quotes2 likes

Famous Horace Walpole Quotes

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.”

Horace Walpole

“The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.”

Horace Walpole

As quoted in The Christian Leader, Vol. 37, Issue 7 (17 February 1934)

“Life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Anne, Countess of Ossory, (16 August 1776)
A favourite saying of Walpole's, it is repeated in other of his letters, and might be derived from a similar statement attributed to Jean de La Bruyère, though unsourced: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think". An earlier form occurs in another published letter:
I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel — a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (31 December 1769)
Variant: The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.

“He was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Source: The Castle of Otranto

“When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.”

Horace Walpole

“A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary.”

Horace Walpole

Letter 123 To Robert Jephson (13 July 1777)

Horace Walpole Quotes about men

“My aversion to them…springs from the perniciousness of that sect to society—I hate Papists, as a man, not as a Protestant. If Papists were only enemies to the religion of other men, I should overlook their errors. As they are foes to liberty, I cannot forgive them.”

Horace Walpole

Memoirs from the Declaration of the War with Spain (1746)

“… It always amazes me, when I reflect on the women, who are the first to propagate scandal of one another. If they would but agree not to censure what they all agree to do, there would be no more loss of characters among them than amongst men. A woman cannot have an affair, but instantly all her sex travel about to publish it and leave her off: now, if a man cheats another of his estate at play, forges a will, or marries his ward to his own son, nobody thinks of leaving him off for such trifles!”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 25 Sept. 1742 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t5p84vt55;view=1up;seq=362, pp. 202–203, The Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. P. Cunningham, vol. 1

“My councils do not need a Friar’s intervention,” said Manfred; “and of all men living is that hoary traitor the only one whom you delight to confer with?”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Section 4
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“Men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.”

Horace Walpole

As quoted in "The Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford" in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, Vol. 27 (1798) edited by Ralph Griffiths, p. 187

Horace Walpole Quotes

“When I first came abroad, every thing struck me”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Richard West, from Rome, 16 April 1740 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t5p84vt55;view=1up;seq=194, p. 42, The Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. P. Cunningham, vol. 1 <br class="br">Context: ... When I first came abroad, every thing struck me, and I wrote its history; but now I am grown so used to be surprised, that I don't perceive any flutter in myself when I meet with any novelties; curiosity and astonishment wear off, and the next thing is, to fancy that other people know as much of places as one's self; or, at least, one does not remember that they do not. It appears to me as odd to write to you of St. Peter's, as it would do to you to write of Westminster-abbey. Besides, as one looks at churches, &c. with a book of travels in one's hand, and sees every thing particularised there, it would appear transcribing, to write upon the same subjects.

“If a passion for freedom is not in vogue, patriots may sound the alarm till they are weary.
The Act of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners may insist on being brought to trial within a limited time, is the corner-stone of our liberty.”

Horace Walpole

Notes of 1758, published in Memoires of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George the Second (1822), p. 226; also published as "Memoirs of the Year 1758" in Memoirs of King George II, Vol. III (1985), p. 10

“Our supreme governors, the mob.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (7 September 1743)

“Harry Vane, Pulteney's toad-eater.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (1742)

““Peace, simpleton!” said the Princess. “Though he said he was unhappy, it does not follow that he must be in love.””

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Section 2
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“Prognostics do not always prove prophecies, — at least the wisest prophets make sure of the event first.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Thomas Walpole (19 February 1785)

““Heaven,” replied Manfred, “does not send Heralds to question the title of a lawful Prince. I doubt whether it even notifies its will through Friars—but that is your affair, not mine.”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Section 3
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is, and despise affectation.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (27 May 1776)

“It was easier to conquer it [the East] than to know what to do with it.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (27 March 1772)

“It is the story of a mountebank and his zany.”

Horace Walpole

Statement about Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, as described in Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., in a letter to Hon. Henry Conway (6 October 1785)

“Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.”

Horace Walpole

As quoted in "The Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford" in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, Vol. 27 (1798) edited by Ralph Griffiths, p. 187

“Have done with this rhapsody of impertinence.”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Section 2
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“Allen of Bath procured them the same honours from thence; and for some weeks it rained gold boxes: Chester, Worcester, Norwich, Bedford, Salisbury, Yarmouth, Tewkesbury, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Stirling, and other populous and chief towns following the example. Exeter, with singular affection, sent boxes of heart of oak.”

Horace Walpole

"The sending of boxes to William Pitt in 1757" in Memoirs of the Reign of King George II (London, 1846–47), Vol. II, p. 202

“A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (1774); this is derived from an proverb of unknown authorship: "A little nonsense now and then / Is relished by the wisest men".

“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (24 November 1774)

“Thy purpose is as odious as thy resentment is contemptible.”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Section 3
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“You think me ambitious: ambition, alas! is composed of more rugged materials. If I were ambitious, I should not for so many years have been a prey to all the hell of conscientious scruples.”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Section 3
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“The whole nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it.”

Horace Walpole

On Scotland, in a etter to Sir Horace Mann (1778); comparable to "It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding", by Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir, vol. i. p. 15.

“Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year. We have not had more conquest than fine weather: one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine. Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before people believe it is the Duke of Devonshire that has done this, and not Mr. Pitt.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to George Montagu (21 October 1759)

“He was my counsel in affairs, was my oracle in taste, the standard to whom I submitted my trifles, and the genius that presided over poor Strawberry.”

Horace Walpole

On the death of his friend John Chute (1776)
As quoted in The National Trust Magazine, Spring 2011, p. 09

“The way to ensure summer in England is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room.”

Horace Walpole

Letter to Willam Cole (28 May 1774)

“Manfred was not one of those savage tyrants who wanton in cruelty unprovoked. The circumstances of his fortune had given an asperity to his temper, which was naturally humane; and his virtues were always ready to operate, when his passions did not obscure his reason.”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Section 1
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“… Why, I'll swear I see no difference between a country gentleman and a sirloin; whenever the first laughs, or the latter is cut, there run out just the same streams of gravy! … Oh! my dear Sir, don't you find that nine parts in ten of the world are of no use but to make you wish yourself with that tenth part? …”

Horace Walpole

Letter to John Chute, from Houghton, 20 Aug. 1743 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t5p84vt55;view=1up;seq=425, p. 265, The Letter of Horace Walpole, ed. P. Cunnighham, vol. 1